


Perseverance

by Daenarii



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, M/M, Trespasser, Trespasser Spoilers, i was Sad that we didnt get to see any!!!! reaction from losing an entire arm so, this happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7832638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daenarii/pseuds/Daenarii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soros Lavellan had never wanted the Anchor. Still, he would've preferred to keep his arm, even if it held the mark. Luckily, Dorian is there to help with the pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perseverance

Soros stumbled through the Eluvian, his body shuddering a little as the “glass” gave way under his shoulder. He still didn’t trust the mirrors, but at the moment, he had larger concerns. He was tightly clutching the stub where his arm used to be, the long sleeve of his leather coat swinging uselessly. He had a grimace on his face as he tried to hold back his pained tears.

Once he was through the mirror, he saw his companions milling about in the middle of the clearing where they’d fought the giant Qunari mage. Sera was sitting on a rock with her back to the Eluvian, and Cassandra—in front of Sera, her arms crossed—was the first to see him, and her face lit up with a smile when their eyes met.

“Soros!” she called, beginning to walk towards him. “You are alive!”

Soros’ eyes found Dorian, who looked a little more alarmed. He’d probably noticed Soros’ grimace. Soros was able to stumble a few steps away from the Eluvian, but after that, the throbbing from the end of his arm brought him crashing to his knees.

He immediately felt hands on his chest, trying to keep him from landing on his face. He looked up at the person touching him, and was a little relieved to see Dorian, who had a worried crease between his brows.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?” He gently patted his hands across Soros’ body, searching for injuries, and as his fingers brushed the sleeve of Soros’ missing arm, his eyes widened in horror.

“Solas,” Soros gasped out, closing his eyes tightly as the pain in his missing arm flared at Dorian’s gentle proddings. “He took the Anchor,” he said through gritted teeth, opening his eyes a crack to glance at Sera and Cassandra. Sera looked horrified, her mouth agape, and Cassandra was frowning deeply.

“Your entire arm’s missing!” Dorian shouted, gripping the sleeve tightly to prove his point.

As he did so, Soros hissed. The leather sleeve had rubbed against the wound, making the pain spike again. “—Took that too,” he gritted out once he could bear the pain.

“We need to take you back to the Winter Palace,” Cassandra said, kneeling down next to Soros. “You are in no condition to tell us what happened right now.”

Soros opened his mouth to protest, but spikes of pain shot through what remained of his arm, so he instead gritted his teeth and dipped his head. “Alright,” he growled.

As Cassandra stood back up, Dorian lifted Soros’ good arm and placed it around his shoulders. “Lean on me,” he said, looking into Soros’ eyes. “I won’t let you fall.”

Soros wanted to protest, to insist that he could walk on his own, but he knew he wouldn’t have been able to choke the words out believably. Instead, he nodded, and began to push himself to his feet, using Dorian as a support.

Their procession was slow. Cassandra and Sera walked in front of Soros and Dorian, picking off any stray Qunari that intended to fight them. There weren’t that many; Soros assumed the majority of the army had gone with the Viddasala to confront Solas.

Soros, however, couldn’t really concentrate on anything other than his arm—or lack thereof. It was throbbing like a heartbeat trying to break out of a ribcage. Feeling kept on phasing in and out; in one moment, he could swear he still had his arm—he could even flex it and clench his hand—but in the next, it was gone again. What felt like tiny Anchors were splayed out on the part of the arm (he assumed) was still part of him, skittering up to his shoulder and pulsing erratically with pain and magic.

He stumbled more than a couple times, and shame flushed through him each time. He felt weak and helpless, and he hated it.

Dorian was worried. Soros could tell from the way his jaw was set, how he was frowning, how he glanced at Soros every time he stumbled and stopped to make sure he was ready to keep going.

“It’ll—be fine,” Soros gasped out between steps when the silence between them became unbearable.

“Will it?” Dorian asked, shooting a glance at Soros. “How are you so sure?”

“He took it—” Soros began, and was interrupted when he had to suck in a gasp of air to ignore the pounding in his arm, “—so I _wouldn’t_ die.”

“Because I’m _sure_ the man has never uttered a lie in his entire life,” Dorian replied scathingly. He glanced at Soros and added a little more softly, “ _Amatus_ , he abandoned you without a word, and stole your arm moments after you two reunited. How can you still trust what he says?”

Soros didn’t respond. He didn’t have an answer. He didn’t want to trust Solas after all that’d happened, and before stepping through the Eluvian, he hadn’t. He’d been expecting a snarling smirk, a venomous _Did you really think we were truly friends, Inquisitor?_ He hadn’t expected sorrow, remorse, reluctance. He hadn’t expected Solas to have a goal he didn’t necessarily disagree with.

His thoughts were interrupted when Sera yelled, “We’re almost there!” He looked up from the uneven terrain in front of him and saw that she was right; the Eluvian was in front of them, shining merrily.

As he and Dorian stepped through it, Soros gave a loud shout of pain. His arm felt like it was being shredded apart. His knees buckled under him, but Dorian kept him standing with a hand on his waist.

“We need to stop,” Dorian called to Cassandra and Sera.

“No,” Soros gasped, shaking his head. “I can keep—”

“It’s getting worse,” Dorian said, leading Soros to a nearby wall and leaning him against it. “If we don’t do something now—” His voice hitched, and Soros felt his resolve crumble at the desperate look on Dorian’s face.

Soros sighed and nodded as he slid to sit against the wall. Dorian crouched with him, then reached forward to tug down the sleeve obscuring his missing arm.

“Let’s see the damage, then,” Dorian murmured. His voice was light, though Soros could tell it was strained.

Sera and Cassandra walked up just as Soros’ arm was bared. Cassandra took on a horrified expression as she stared at it, transfixed. Sera’s eyes widened, and she mumbled, “ _Shit_ ,” as she took a step back. Dorian’s frown deepened as he widened his eyes; the expression resembled horror.

Soros was apprehensive to see the damage after their reactions, but it was his arm, and he had to know. He slowly drew his gaze down to it, and felt the icy claw of fear grip his heart at the sight.

It was still glowing and it was still green. Now, instead of a single gash, there were tons of little lightning-like cracks running along the stump and up to his shoulder. The tears in his skin pulsed with the Fade, writhing emerald light playing within them.

But besides that, Soros’ arm was gone. Even then, he could still feel it, could swear on his life that he was clenching it—but it wasn’t there. It’d disappeared without so much as a drop of blood. Soros might’ve felt better if there’d been blood, but everything was already sealed, save for the magic-riddled lines in his skin.

He couldn’t handle the sight. He was becoming lightheaded. He screwed his eyes shut and leaned his head stiffly against the wall behind him. He tried to focus on something other than the bile rising in his throat, or the heartbeat pounding in his ears, or the writhing feeling of magic under his skin. He tried to focus on the piece of debris digging into his back, on his remaining arm which still ached from the rush through a Qunari army, on barely-remembered lullabies he’d heard his mother sing to his sister when he was young.

Sweat prickled down his spine, and he distantly heard Cassandra say something. He wasn’t able to discern it, though; his stomach was churning and twisting, and he was breathing too hard.

He felt a hand cup his cheek, and he fluttered his eyes open to meet Dorian’s. He tried to ignore the green glow emanating from his left.

“Stay with me, _amatus_ ,” Dorian murmured lowly. “I’m going to feel it. Tell me if it gets worse, alright?”

Soros nodded weakly, his eyes half-closed. He suddenly felt fatigued and tired. His eyelids were heavy, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he struggled through the fuzziness. _Need to stay awake,_ he thought. _Stay awake stay awake stay awake…._

Dorian used his free hand to cautiously reach towards Soros’ glowing arm. Soros tried to focus on Dorian’s face, not wanting to look at the arm again. The image was still fresh in his mind.

When Soros felt Dorian’s hand brush his arm, he let out a strained yell. The magic in his arm felt like fire, dancing wildly, shooting a continuous stream of mind-numbing pain up through his shoulder. Dorian quickly removed his hand, but it was too much. Soros couldn’t handle it, not all at once.

 _Kaffas_ was the last thing he heard before his eyes drooped shut and his mind shot into blackness.

* * *

Soros awoke with a deep inhale. He felt warm and soft, swaddled under a blanket, his head resting on a pillow. He blinked open his eyes, and was met with the sight of a white marbled ceiling he’d become familiar with during their time at the Winter Palace.

He rolled his head to the left, to look outside the tall window. Moonlight filtered into the spacious room, gleaming on the tile, and the dark sky was softly brushed with stars. A soft breeze blew in through the window, making the thin drapes drift like feathers in the air. The wind caressed Soros’ skin, and he realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

He hesitated before looking down at his missing arm. He was relieved to see that it was wrapped in crisp white bandages that covered most of the scarring. It didn’t hurt anymore, and it wasn’t pulsing or glowing, but he was wary of the green-tinted lines of skin peeking out from the bandages.

He pointedly rolled his head to the right instead, where his eyes landed on a sleeping Dorian. His onyx hair was ruffled, and he had rather dark circles under his eyes. He was slumped down in a golden seat with blue cushions on it, and his feet were propped up on the bed Soros was laying in.

Soros felt a smile tug at his face, despite the dire state Dorian seemed to be in. He slowly sat up. He felt himself begin to droop to the left, so he reached out a hand to steady himself. He remembered that he no longer had a hand there when he plopped into the soft mattress, his stump twisted uncomfortably under him.

He sighed into the covers—quietly, so as not to disturb Dorian—before he used his hand to tug himself to a sitting position. He glanced down at his bandaged arm as he did so; it seemed he would have to remember that he no longer had anything there.

As he stared at the bandages, he realized what this would mean. Archery required two hands; he’d never be able to shoot a bow again. He’d be severely limited in what he could do by himself; he already struggled to carry heavier things. It’d be impossible with only an arm and a half. And, _Creators_ , how would he help his clan with only one arm?

Soros slammed a cage door down on the thoughts there and quickly locked them up. His brow was furrowed as he stared at his bandaged arm, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He tried to think of other things, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting back to his clan.

He wouldn’t be able to go back to them. He’d visit, of course, nobody could stop him from doing that, but he would never be able to stay. He supposed he’d known that since they’d killed Corypheus, but he hadn’t been able to admit it to himself. Since he was—

“You’re awake.” Soros’ thoughts screeched to a halt at the whispered words. He looked towards Dorian, and saw that he was awake. His cloud-gray eyes were wide open, and he had a hesitant and disbelieving smile on his face.

Soros nodded. “I suppose I am,” he responded.

Dorian dropped his feet from the bed and lunged forward to wrap Soros in a vicious embrace. He buried his face into Soros’ neck and squeezed his arms around him tightly. Soros found a grin crawling across his face.

“I thought I’d _killed_ you,” Dorian strained out before he leaned back, focusing on Soros’ face once again. His arms hung loosely around Soros, warming away the chill the breeze had introduced. “If you need to pass out for three days straight again, could you at least wait until someone _else_ touches you?”

“I was asleep for three days?” Soros asked, frowning slightly.

Dorian nodded, leaning back further, instead bracing his hands on the bed. “Cassandra and I were able to carry you back through the Eluvians— _not_ an easy task, let me tell you—and get you back here. Apparently what remained of your mark was desperately trying to find some source of magic to latch onto, as the Anchor—its original source—was gone. I touched it and, since I happen to be full of magic, it...overpowered you.”

Soros nodded, though he didn’t entirely understand—or want to. It was enough that it wasn’t tearing him to ribbons anymore. It was enough that everyone was safe.

“Thank you, Dorian,” Soros said.

“You know I’m not one to turn down praise, but all I did was lift a little and knock you out,” Dorian said with a frown. “Which, might I add, nearly killed you.”

“You got me here,” Soros asserted. “And, truthfully, it was...very painful, even before I lost consciousness,” he continued, glancing away for a moment. “I’m glad I wasn’t able to feel it for the rest of the journey.”

Dorian was silent for a moment as he watched Soros. A smile then crawled onto his face as he hummed, “Yes, well, I couldn’t very well let the man I love writhe in pain, could I?”

Soros smiled, a silent chuckle exhaled from his nose. “I suppose not,” he said. “What have I mi—”

“If we’re going to start playing catch-up, I do believe there is something more important to be done first,” Dorian interrupted. He leaned forward and crashed his lips against Soros’.

Soros was still for a moment; he hadn’t expected the kiss. As Dorian speared his fingers through his hair and grabbed his waist, however, Soros leapt to action. He leaned closer to Dorian, reaching up with his hand to cup his face as their lips mingled together.

To Soros, it felt desperate. It was an apology and a reprimand at once, an _I’m glad you’re safe but never do that again_. It was fierce and soft and unyielding all at once, and they had to part for air far too soon for Soros’ liking.

Dorian leaned his forehead against Soros’, panting slightly, a smirk on his lips. “Alright,” he breathed. “ _Now_ we can play catch-up.”

Soros chuckled lightly, having forgotten entirely about his arm. He suspected that wouldn’t be the last time he did so.


End file.
